jenius

And it's up! I think when I get my red and green ones in I'll be able to focus more on "cooler" pics since these two reviews will serve as the place to go to get details. Check out part 2!

My King Kong or Incredible Hulk pose:

I'm trying to get it posted before I go get drunk . If I'm not done in the next 45 minutes or so it might have to wait until tomorrow.

Obviously I'll post pics when I have mine in but I ordered the green and red concurrently so I won't have them until the red one has been delivered.

Isn't HG involved in real estate also? It's an odd company. Anyway, Bandai wouldn't be able to ship outside Japan but pay for downloads? That might work... for a while at least.

It's not, the red one is like $10 - $20 more expensive than the blue.

Amen.

He also has 2 Taka SDF-1s in there... he could have one each on the diagonals!

Yeah, I got the MHs to stand, and even in a couple almost display-worthy positions (pics are in my review), but for just about anything cool I had to use the stand and that stand is even WORSE in my opinion than the green stick. Here's my reasoning, the stand has this plateau for the backpack but if you pose the toy at all that rest area is useless. With the CMs you just angle the stick and its still functional. The CMs looks much better in bike mode also and has a ton more tampo (although bike mode is frustrating on the front end... especially Ley's). In armor mode the MH looks way better but it doesn't feel well put together and I am not going to pull out a box and put parts away or take parts out every time I want to transform a toy. I feel like I got two toys that both missed the mark. The CMs was clearly the better toy, just made too small and with too fragile a windscreen. The 1/18 scale toy should have been the parts former and the 1/15 should have used CMs engineering. I also hate how more parts come off when I transform the MH than are supposed to. Another reason why the green stick is cool by me: you can angle it so you don't even see it from the front. You can't do that with the big MH stand.

If you take 2 you'll get a shipping discount! Only $795 for you

I'm kinda surprised, the longer I have these toys, the more I'm coming to believe the CMs Ride Armor is superior to the MH (or, it would be if the windshield wasn't so damn fragile). I've gotten to the point with the CMs where I can transform them super quick but the guantlets when in bike mode still frustrate me a bit. My Mega House is decent but I just don't find it nearly as fun. When I want to transform it I just quickly break it into 100 pieces and then put it back together again. Then it just flops backward endlessly unless I prop it against something. The CMs seems to allow me to play with more posing options (thanks to that green stick stand).

that's a small fortune in toys.

I'm looking at a 5 year graph of the Yuan though and it looks like it used to be 8.3 Yuan were $1, now 7 Yuan is $1. I remember hearing they were linked but clearly a buck isn't worth what it used to be in China either. EDIT - uh, i talk too much finance in my day-to-day life, it fascinates me. I should probably stop doing this here though since it's off topic. Sorry everybody.

I don't do international stuff but does every nation buy barrels of oil in US dollars? If not it's probably misleading to say the cost of oil has increased 4x. It has increased 4x in the US but we're (generally) not making toys here. Now, it might have also gone up 4x against the Chinese currency but I would guess the Yuan hasn't nosedived quite like the USD even if they do share some relation. I can't download the file to see if this was addressed. Still, oil costs more... but I think there's some obvious other reasons why this toy should cost more than the first. It's clearly better designed and comes with strike parts... plus Yamato has learned how deep our pockets are.

So, I guess what you're trying to say is, you DO take offense at being told that posing a toy and putting it on a shelf is not "playing." Sorry, but at least I was applying the definition equally to both of us. I'm also sorry you didn't like your opinion being put under scrutiny.

You're being a silly, over-reacting hobo. I have no agenda, I just don't understand your reasoning. People say things like "The huge derivations from line art are a big let down" and you respond with "But it looks like a fun toy you can play with!" I would agree with you on that statement. Then you say things that imply you have no intention of playing with the toy and it becomes confusing why you'd care so much it looks like a fun toy you can play with. I would definitely say I do NOT play with my toys but I do transform and pose all of them so don't be too offended when I tell you what you do isn't really "playing" with them either. Playing with a toy would involve swooshing it around, rapidly transforming it, doing barrel rolls, and battling unseen bad guys (believe it or not, when you hold a toy in your hand and do any of those things you'll put a good shake on it). I have no problem with you being optomistic, I just find some of your praise a wee bit interesting. I'm still sure you won't be let down by it so don't let me ruffle your feathers.

I agree, it's just the arms (those are the boosters I was talking about) and the wings that are easily moved on mine. I haven't had a problem with the nose.

So what you love is that it LOOKS like a toy, even if it kinda doesn't do well as a toy in one mode because all you're going to do is put it on a shelf? I'm becoming convinced that you just love the CMs! stamp on the box and the good news is that this won't possibly let you down.

I think it's more than a satisfying click here though. I like it to have a settled place where it belongs. With the CMs legioss you can misalign it by simply handling it which makes it less fun. If you pick up any Vf-1 toy that's not made by Toynami and shake it it will still look like the VF-1 in fighter mode when you're done (although the reflex missiles will fall to the ground), the CMs legioss will have boosters pointing in the wrong directions and one wing up and the other one down.

It's a classic Takatoku toy from the early 80s. The valk doesn't transform, it doesn't have much in the way of articulation, and it's in an off scale, something like 1/76 or something like that. It does have a neat gimmick though in that the you can move the head out of the way and expose a pilot's seat IIRC.

<--- hoping for early May... too many CMs purchases lately

Glad you guys are liking the review... remember though it's mostly just the Legioss I was reviewing in that post. The next post will focus on the Tlead and the combined toy. I expect it will score higher than the Legioss did (although not amazingly so). Overall I think 7.5 to 8 out of 10 seems about right for this set (although I know Exo will hate hearing that). I would expect something absolutely stellar in this price range though and you don't get that so if you're not a Mospeada freak then yeah, save your coin for Macross loot.

Don't be discouraged Hikaru's VF-1S, it doesn't look like it will be all that much higher and certainly not the $295 I was expecting. Part 1 of my 2 part review is up. In truth it's three parts, I'll post one assimilated review when I have my red and green ones in and do cool poses with all three together. In the meantime you get two detailed reviews, one tonight and another one soon. For those who need a carpet ride, CLICK HERE.

Overdrive just sent me an email, they think they'll be offering the red but can't confirm price but are guessing $245ish. They said they'd make more info available when they could PS - T minus 30 minutes until I get my stupid review up...

That means it's going to start shipping to the people we asked for it from right? So it probably means it'll take a few days for it to get to them and then they can ship it to us I better check my spam folder... I don't think I heard back from Overdrive.